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An anonymous reader writes "The Consumerist is reporting that one unlucky individual had to send his Xbox 360 in for repairs. The catch is he had spent a great deal of time getting signatures and artwork on the outside of the console from notable members of the gaming industry. He specifically asked and even sent a letter along with his console requesting that the outside of the case be returned intact. When he got it back it was once again, plain white. Assuming that this is a genuine claim, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the missing/cleaned case Microsoft should at least apologize to the guy."

FYI, if you mail-in your 360 for "repairs" your going to get a previously refurbished 360. MS does this in order to accelerate turnaround. Moreover, what you get back could very well be an older model that is more prone to failure.

Anytime you send something into service/repair for -any- company, regardless of what industry they are, you waive rights to that current hardware. As long as you get something that is comparable back to it, there's very little that you can do legally, since sending it to the Repair center means acceptance of all of the stipulations.

I found this comment on another sie reportingthe same story:
All repairs and maint are done through a third party company, Jabil, in Renoysa, Mexico. They have a specific set of instructions that they follow assembly-line style, and one of the first steps in that is they scrub the unit down with rubbing alcohol and remove all stickers and so forth that are on it. Any letter with the console would have been disregarded since the workers don't speak English, and are much more concerned with keeping up with the mass amount of work to be done, because they can be fired very easily if they don't. Even in an unusual case like artwork and signatures, the workers have better job security just pushing it through like usual than stopping to ask.

Not to be a dick, but generally when you send something for warranty work you are
1) not guaranteed to get the exact same item back. When discussing the legal aspects of a situation like this, it is generally a type of bailment known as a mutuum. Essentially, you are not guaranteed the return of the exact system that you sent in, in the same way that if you borrow a cigarette from a friend and pay him back, he might reasonably expect that you replace his Marlboro Red with a Marlboro Red and not a Camel, but he knows not to expect the return of the exact same cigarette. Also, you can consider a neighbor borrowing sugar from you. The exact wording of the warranty contract will determine whether this is the case.
2) often advised in the wording to the warranty that any aftermarket enhancements will not be returned to you. In this case things like faceplates, stickers, and such. When sending in systems for warranty repair you are generally advised not to send any memory cards, cabling, or controllers, or you will not get them back. When dealing with warranty work with cellular phones, often you are asked to remove your battery, battery cover, and faceplate, because you will not get it back.
Without having a copy of the warranty contract in front of me, I have no way of knowing, but chances are this guy doesn't have a leg to stand on.

All those paintings have been restored and are stored in museums with perfect atmospheric conditions under very low lighting. They are also never handled in the way an Xbox would be. Ever seen an oil painting from the 19th century? They are always filled with cracks. They crack, chip, and fall apart with time.

Paper will last but it essentially turns to dust even when stored in perfect conditions. Quite a number of the dead sea scrolls could not be recovered because they were dust. An Xbox case will certainly last longer than 500 years given museum quality handling and storage.

When his XBOX finally died, he contacted Microsoft to make sure that he could send the console in without having the exterior case replaced or damaged. Microsoft ensured him that his request would not be a problem.

Maybe he wasn't clear enough? Maybe he should've pointed out why he wanted that case?

Sadly there was no malice here.I used to work in a company that bid for xbox repair work.In all reality the process is that 1 person in country A takes the customer return informationUnit is received in country B by one operator who strips down the unit and disposes of the packaging. The serial number of the unit is then scanned in to their tracking system and matches it up against customer return information.Now assuming that YOUR xbox is returned to you rather than some form of advance exchange programme a different operator will diagnose the defective part of your xbox, this part will be swapped out and either RMA'd itself or repaired offline. Now your unit will be final tested by another operator who will then pass it on to a QC station for another operator who will immediately identify that the outside casing does not meet Microsoft outbound QC standards and will clean the casing, or swap it out if it does not scrub up enough.

There is no way in the system for it to pop up saying DO NOT CLEAN ME. And even if the repair facility got the email from services they are totally unlikely to have caught the unit in the repair loop.

Having a fancy box at a gaming conventions, etc. is cool (and he does go to them - that's where he got the signatures), having a few polaroids to show people isn't.

But yes, he should have bought a new Xbox and switched the case. Expecting a mass-market repair center to spend extra time/money on you just because you painted your Xbox a different color is, ummm, "unrealistic".

I totally agree, sending it back was stupid. Microsoft shouldn't have been liable for any 'additional value' add-ons. Most of the time you just get a replacement stock box out of the refurb stack, and they send yours off for repair to add to the stack ( or the trash heap ) and never even look at it when its still attached to your name.

... it's because he was promised he would. And for the record, he *did* get the same case back. That's the 'WTF' point of the article - he got the same case back, but it the artwork was intentionally and very deliberately removed. I was going to complain that the parent of your post didn't RTFA (because the warranty was cited there as the reason for not opening the case), which means he shouldn't be responding to the article in the first place, but it looks like you didn't either. Sheesh.